June 1, 2005,
vol. 2,
no. 3
Image
Stuff Home
Editors: Marlene Gordon (University of Michigan-Dearborn) & Corey Schultz (Stanford University)
Table
of Contents
VRA Funnies
VireoCat (Visual Resources Open
Cataloging Utility)
DIRC - What is it?
Orphan Works - VRA a Signatory on Orphan Works
Reply Comments
SEI Update
The Dragon VRAffle
Donation
Tech Tips
Positions Filled
Chapter
News
VRA
Funnies
By Jonathan Cartledge (Massachusetts College of
Art)
VireoCat
By Susan James Williams (Scholars
Resource)
VireoCat is a new open
source relational database developed by Susan Jane Williams, and is now
ready to be downloaded from Saskia's Scholars Resource web site.
Link #1: www.scholarsresource.com/download/VireoCat.zip
This link contains the application file; please note that you have to
have FileMaker Pro 7 installed on your computer in order to view
VireoCat. Also included are three PDF files that include the
logo, a copy of the entity relationship diagram, and a nine-page user
guide.
Link #2: www.scholarsresource.com/download/VRCollectionImages.zip
This link contains the folder and subfolders for the preview images
that illustrate how VireoCat functions. (Note: the images are
quite small (to facilitate downloading); also, read the user guide
first before changing the folder structure.)
Thanks to Mark Olson, list manager
(mso@ku.edu), there is a fledgling user group
and discussion list already going, . To subscribe to VireoCat-L, send a
message to this address: listproc@ku.edu Leave the subject line
empty, and place this text in the body of the message: SUB VIREOCAT
<Your Name> (omitting the angle brackets and substituting your
name for the words "Your Name".)
Thanks to Kurt Wiedenhoeft for hosting the VireoCat download on the
Scholars Resource site. Thanks also to betatesters Mark Olsen, Kristin
Solias and Eileen Fry who offered several suggestions and fixes.
We will keep making adjustments to VireoCat as VRA Core 4.0 and CCO are
finalized. One of our major goals is to share records via XML;
therefore, when the XML schema is released, we will work with the XML
export feature in FMP7 to ensure that it works fully.
DIRC
- What is it?
During the Miami conference, DIRC was mentioned on several
occassions. But what is it? DIRC is the "Digital Image
Rights Computator". DIRC will be a companion to the Copy
Photography Computator (CPC) written by Allan Kohl. It will also
be an interactive program consisting of a series of questions and will
provide such items as definitions of terms and links to online
resources. Information hints will also
assist the user in
determining an answer to the questions posed. DIRC will provide a
recommended action allowing the user to make an educated decision on
how an image can be made available for use. A sub-group of the
Intellectual Property Rights Committee is currently working on this
project, and it is anticipated that the program will become available
early 2006.
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Orphan
Works - VRA a Signatory on Orphan Works Reply Comments
By Jane Darcovich (University of Illinois/Chicago) - VRA Intellectual
Property Rights Committee
The Visual Resources Association was one of a group of signatories
(including, among others, the American Library Association, the
Association of Research Libraries, the College Art Association, and
Educause) on a Reply Comments document filed with the U. S. Copyright
Office by the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic on May
9, 2005. Our VRA President, Kathe Albrecht, attended a meeting in
Washington D.C. in April to participate in discussions for crafting
this joint set of reply comments. The VRA supported the original
Copyright Clearance Initiative (CCI) proposal for remedying the Orphan
Works issue, also submitted by the Glushko-Samuelson Clinic, on March
25, 2005.
This Reply Comments document reiterates what is deemed the "heart" of
the CCI proposal; that is, the requirement that a potential user of an
orphaned work (a work for which the copyright holder is unknown) first
conduct an appropriate "reasonable efforts" search to locate the rights
holder. If a user fails to conduct such a search and the rightful
copyright owner later emerges, the owner would retain
the right to seek full remedies against the user. Thus, the
potential user of an orphaned work has a strong incentive to conduct a
meaningful search. As a corollary, this proposal insists on the
importance of limiting remedies in the case where users of orphan works
have conducted a reasonable efforts search without locating a copyright
owner. [1]
This method is seen as one which would develop a known set of "best
practices" among user communities, and is described as an approach
which is more likely to promote clarity than a "top-down" regulatory
approach which has been suggested by others.
A group representing several major members of the museum community also
submitted Reply Comments. [2] The signatories to this document
are: The Denver Art Museum, The Indianapolis Museum of Art, The J. Paul
Getty Trust, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim
Foundation, The Spencer Museum of Art, The United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum, and The Wolfsonian-Florida International University.
Contrary to the position expressed in the CCI proposal, the museum
document supports providing an outright exemption for those who use
orphan works. Their document expresses the opinion that it is
important to make a strong effort to encourage the use of orphan works,
not to just allow their use under certain conditions, in order to
provide the greatest benefit to the general public. They repeated
the opinion, stated in their original comments, that the possibility of
monetary damages due if a copyright holder should emerge, even if
limited in dollar amount, will be daunting enough for small museums to
choose not to use an orphan work.
The U. S. Copyright Office has posted these, and many other Reply
Comments (a total of 146 are currently available) on its web site at http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/comments/reply/
End Notes
[1] The Joint Reply Comments document filed by the Gluskho-Samuelson
Clinic is posted on the U.S. Copyright web site at: http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/comments/reply/OWR0127-Various.pdf
[2] The Reply Comments filed by this group of museums are available at: http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/comments/reply/OWR0122-ArtMuseums.pdf
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SEI Update: Who
ya gonna call . . . for professional development focused on images?
By Maureen Burns (UC Irvine) - Co-chair of 2006
SEI
Where might a fledgling image curator or library student get specific
training to break into the field of visual resources? If you are
already working in an image collection but are interested in honing
your
skills or transitioning to digital images, where might you get the
crucial information you need? Consider the Summer Educational
Institute (SEI) for Visual Resources and Image Management as an option,
a joint program of the Art Libraries Society of North America and the
Visual Resources Association. One 2004 participant described it
as the "Best program... right on target for what I needed to know,
now!" The SEI will be taking place from July 5 through the 9 at
Duke University with John Taormina turning on the Southern hospitality
for a second year in a row. It is an intensive 5-day program; as
another attendee wrote, "It is like 4 years of conferences rolled
into 1 week!... I think SEI is especially good because the subjects
were so
well coordinated with each other and so were the instructors! It
makes this program extremely valuable." Building on the
resounding success of the first year, an implementation team of eight
volunteers representing both professional organizations, have worked
tirelessly to update the curriculum and provide the same high standard
of instruction, with both new and returning instructors. The team
has accomplished a great deal of work to get the 2005 SEI off the
ground: local planning, budgeting, development, policy, and
publicity. A web site with all the information you need can be
found at http://www.vraweb.org/2005sei/index.html.
If you have additional questions, SEI co-chairs Trudy Jacoby and
Maureen Burns are available to help. Although the 2005
Institute filled quickly this year, the waiting list is shorter second
time around, so start planning now to attend in 2006! One of last
year’s participants summed-up the spirit of the SEI nicely; "This
attitude and commitment to working towards the greater good of the
profession adds to the quality of life for all pursuing a VR
career."
Stay tuned to Image Stuff . . . where the new venue for SEI 2006 will
be announced next time!
The
Dragon VRAffle Donation
Inspired by discussions on the VRA list, Trudy Levy created a painting
of a Dragon guarding the image repository, which she donated to the
2005 VRAffle. Sara Jane Pearman, Dragon Expert, won the
painting and took it back to her lair at the Cleveland Museum of
Art. Congratulations, Sara Jane!
Tech
Tips
By Alexander Nichols (Michigan State
University)
Q. What type of lens is recommended for the Nikon D-70?
A. This depends on how the camera will be used. For photographing books
and periodicals on a copystand, Nikon's 28-105mm lens is a good
mid-priced option, providing a convenient focal range and a macro
mode. For photographing flat original art (when sharpness is
critical) a combination of the 60mm Micro-Nikkor (for smaller items)
and the 35mm f/2 (for larger items) would be ideal. For general
purpose photography, the 18-70mm lens (often included with the D70) is
an excellent option.
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Positions Filled
By Mary Duff-Silverman (University of
Michigan-Ann Arbor)
In December 2004, I accepted the position of
Supervisor of University of Michigan’s Visual Resources Collection
after working part-time in the collection since May 2004. Previously, I
was at Michigan State University where I worked initially in the Art
Department slide collection and then spent the next twelve years
designing, building, and managing a resource center and computer lab
for the Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities. In
my new position at the University of Michigan, I oversee the daily
management of the Visual Resources teaching collection for the
department of the History of Art. Currently, our greatest challenges
and adventures include development of a new database and preparing
almost half of the department’s courses to "go digital" in fall 2005.
If you have accepted a new
position or know of someone who
has, please contact Marlene (mgordon@umich.edu). Please include contact
information and a
brief biographic statement on the individual.
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Chapter News
The Greater
New York Chapter meeting will be held Friday, June 17th at Princeton University.
It will feature demonstrations of the image management databases
Almagest and Pictor, a tour of Princeton's VR collection, and possibly
tours of the Princeton Index of Christian Art and/or Marquand
Library. New officers will be elected during the business
meeting, and a reception will follow. RSVP to Dustin Weems
at dw@artstor.org
The Northern California Chapter held its Spring
meeting at UC Davis on May 13th, hosted by Leah Theis, Visual Resources
Librarian. Members gave reports on the Miami
conference, and Alev Akman of CSU Fresno reported on her involvement
with Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/),
the largest collection of free eBooks on the web. In the
afternoon, Kirk Alexander, the
Manager of Educational Technology, demonstrated the open source image
database and teaching tool Almagest (http://www.princeton.edu/~almagest/opensource/).
The Pacific Rim Chapter of the VRA is
planning its annual meeting for August 27th. The meeting will be
held at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR, and Margo
Ballantyne (Visual Resources Curator at Lewis and Clark) and Karin
Whalen (Visual Resources Librarian at Reed College)
will share the duties of hosts. At Lewis and Clark College, the
chapter will visit the new 'green' building, Howard Hall, which is
equipped with the latest classroom technology. An agenda
for the meeting is being developed; input from chapter members is being
sought on issues they would like to see discussed. In the
planning stages is a session on CCO (Cataloguing Cultural Objects) lead
by Debra Cox (Art Slide Library, University of Washington), who
received the Chapter's 2005 Travel Award to attend the VRA conference
in Miami Beach.
A technology-based session may center around the experiences of chapter
members who attend a demonstration of digital asset management
technology at Reed College this June. A third topic might
deal with human-resources type workplace issues. Several chapter
members have experienced re-organizations within their institutions,
moving into new buildings, and changes in work-flow. A discussion
session on dealing with change, preventing burn-out, or maintaining
momentum during such events might be pertinent. The annual
meeting will also include a business meeting, lunch, and possibly a
tour of a museum in Portland. Chapter members with items for the
meeting agenda, and with ideas for sessions, tours, and discussions
should use the Chapter's listserve to contribute to the agenda.
The Upstate New York
Chapter held a meeting Alfred University on May 20th, hosted by
Mandy Economos. They toured Scholes Library and the stunning
Visual Resources Center at the New York State College of Ceramics, saw
a glassblowing demonstration, and had a fantastic workshop on
Photoshop CS taught by David Seiler of Skidmore. In addition,
three VRA members living in Upstate New York, Jeanne Keefe, Marcia
Focht and Caitlain Devereaux Lewis, gave papers for a session moderated
by Marcia titled "Managing Image Collections for Teaching: Selection,
Storage and Preservation" at the Conference on Instructional
Technologies, May 23-26 at Binghamton University. Upstate NY
looks forward to an upcoming joint meeting with the New England Chapter
in October.
If you would like more information on any of the other regional chapters, please contact the appropriate chapter chairperson. A list of the chapters and contact information is posted on the VRA website (www.vraweb.org/organization/chapters.html).